Full details respecting Vigilantius, against whom this treatise, the result of a
single night's labour, is directed, may be found in a work on" Vigilantius and His
Times," published in 1844 by Dr. Gilly, canon of Durham. It will perhaps, however.
assist the reader if we briefly remark that he was born about 370, at Calagurris. near
Convenae (Comminges). which was a station on the Roman road from Aquitaine to Spain. His
father was probably the keeper of the inn, and Vigilantius appears to have been brought up
to his father's business. He was of a studious character, and Sulpicius Severus, the
ecclesiastical historian. who had estates in those parts, took him into his service, and,
possibly, made him manager of his estates. Having been ordained he was introduced to
Jerome (then living at Bethlehem, in 395) through Paulinus of Nola, who was the friend of
Sulpicius Severus. After staying with Jerome for a considerable thee he begged to be
dismissed. and left in great haste without giving any reason. Returning to Gaul, he
settled in his native country. Jerome hearing that he was spreading reports of him as
favouring the views of Origen, and in other ways defaming him and his friends, wrote him a
sharp letter of rebuke (Letter LXI.). The
work of Vigilantius which drew from Jerome the following treatise was written in the year
A.D. 406; not" hastily, under provocation such as he may have felt in leaving
Bethlehem." but after the lapse of six or seven years. The points against which he
argued as being superstitious are: (1) the reverence paid to the relics of holy men by
carrying them round the church in costly vessels or silken wrappings to be kissed. and the
prayers offered to the dead; (2) the late watchings at the basilicas of the martyrs. with
their attendant scandals. the burning of numerous tapers. alleged miracles, etc.; (3) the
sending of aims to Jerusalem, which. Vigilantius urged, had better be spent among the poor
in each separate diocese. and the monkish vow of poverty; (4) Me exaggerated estimate of
virginity.

The bishop of the diocese, Exsuperius of Toulouse, was strongly in favour of the views
of Vigilantius, and they began to spread widely. Complaints having reached Jerome through
the presbyter Riparius, he at once expressed his indignation, and offered to answer in
detail if the work of Vigilantius were sent to him. In 406 he received it through
Sisinnius, who was bearing alms to the East. It has been truly said that this treatise has
less of reason and more of abuse than any other which Jerome wrote. But in spite of this
the author was followed by the chief ecclesiastics of the day, and the practices impugned
by Vigilantius prevailed almost unchecked till the sixteenth century.

1. The world has given birth to many monsters; in 'Isaiah we read of centaurs and
sirens, screech-owls and pelicans. Job, in mystic language, describes Leviathan and
Behemoth; Cerberus and the birds of Stymphalus, the Erymanthian boar and the Nemean lion,
the Chimaera and the many-headed Hydra, are told of in poetic fables. Virgil describes
Cacus. Spain has produced Geryon, with his three bodies. Gaul alone has had no monsters,
but has ever been rich in men of courage and great eloquence. All at once Vigilantius, or,
more correctly, Dormitantius, has arisen, animated by an unclean spirit, to fight against
the Spirit of Christ. and to deny that religious reverence is to be paid to the tombs of
the martyrs. Vigils, he says, are to be condemned; Alleluia must never be sung except at
Easter; continence is a heresy; chastity a hot-bed of lust. And as Euphorbus is said to
have been born again in the person of Pythagoras, so in this fellow the corrupt mind of
Jovinianus has arisen; so that in him, no less than in his predecessor, we are bound to
meet the snares of the devil. The words may be justly applied to him:[2] "Seed of
evil-doers, prepare thy children for the slaughter because of the sins of thy
father." Jovinianus, condemned by the authority of the Church of Rome, amidst
pheasants and swine's flesh, breathed out, or rather belched out his spirit. And now this
tavern-keeper of Calagurris, who, according to the name of his[1] native village is a
Quintilian, only dumb instead of eloquent, is[2] mixing water with the wine. According to
the trick which he knows of old, he is trying to blend his perfidious poison with the
Catholic faith; he assails virginity and hates chastity; he revels with worldlings and
declaims against the fasts of the saints; he plays the philosopher over his cups, and
soothes himself with the sweet strains of psalmody, while he smacks his lips over his
cheese-cakes; nor could he deign to listen to the songs of David and Jeduthun, and Asaph
and the sons of Core, except at the banqueting table. This I have poured forth with more
grief than amusement, for I cannot restrain myself and turn a deaf ear to the wrongs
inflicted on apostles and martyrs.

2. Shameful to relate, there are bishops who are said to be associated with him in his
wickedness--if at least they are to be called bishops--who ordain no deacons but such as
have been previously married; who credit no celibate with chastity--nay, rather, who show
clearly what measure of holiness of life they can claim by indulging in evil suspicions of
all men, and, unless the candidates for ordination appear before them with pregnant wives,
and infants wailing in the arms of their mothers, will not administer to them Christ's
ordinance. What are the Churches of the East to do? What is to become of the Egyptian
Churches and those belonging to the Apostolic Seat, which accept for the ministry only men
who are virgins, or those who practice continency, or, if married, abandon their conjugal
rights? Such is the teaching of Dormitantius, who throws the reins upon the neck of lust,
and by his encouragement doubles the natural heat of the flesh, which in youth is mostly
at boiling point, or rather slakes it by intercourse with women; so that there is nothing
to separate us from swine, nothing wherein we differ from the brute creation, or from
horses, respecting which it is written:[1] "They were toward women like raging
horses; everyone neighed after his neighbour's wife." This is that which the Holy
Spirit says by the mouth of David:[2] "Be ye not like horse and mule which have no
understanding." And again respecting Dormitantius and his friends: [3]"Bind the
jaws of them who draw not near unto thee with bit and bridle."

3. But it is now thee for us to adduce his own words and answer him in detail. For,
possibly, in his malice, he may choose once more to misrepresent me, and say that I have
trumped up a case for the sake of showing off my rhetorical and declamatory powers in
combating it, like the letter[4] which I wrote to Gaul, relating to a mother and daughter
who were at variance. This little treatise, which I now dictate, is due to the reverend
presbyters Riparius and Desiderius, who write that their parishes have been defiled by
being in his neighbourhood, and have sent me, by our brother Sisinnius, the books which he
vomited forth in a drunken fit. They also declare that some persons are found who, from
their inclination to his vices, assent to his blasphemies. He is a barbarian both in
speech and knowledge. His style is rude. He cannot defend even the truth; but, for the
sake of laymen, and poor women, laden with sins, ever learning and never coming to a
knowledge of the truth, I will spend upon his melancholy trifles a single night's labour,
otherwise I shall seem to have treated with contempt the letters of the reverend persons
who have entreated me to undertake the task.

4. He certainly well represents his race. Sprung from a set of brigands and persons
collected together from all quarters ([mean those whom Cn. Pompey, alter the conquest of
Spain, when he was hastening to return for his triumph, brought down from the Pyrenees and
gathered together into one town, whence the name of the city Convenae[1]), he has carried
on their brigand practices by his attack upon the Church of God. Like his ancestors the
Vectones, the Arrabaci, and the Celtiberians, he makes his raids upon the churches of
Gaul, not carrying the standard of the cross, but, on the contrary, the ensign of the
devil. Pompey did just the same in the East. After overcoming the Cilician and Isaurian
pirates and brigands, he founded a city, bearing his own name, between Cilicia and
Isauria. That city, however, to this day, observes the ordinances of its ancestors, and no
Dormitantius has arisen in it; but Gaul supports a native foe, and sees seated in the
Church a man who has lost his head and who ought to be put in the strait-jacket which
Hippocrates recommended. Among other blasphemies, he may be heard to say," What need
is there for you not only to pay such honour, not to say adoration, to the thing, whatever
it may be, which you carry about in x little vessel and worship?" And again, in the
same book," Why do you kiss and adore a bit of powder wrapped up in a cloth?"
And again, in the same book," Under the cloak of religion we see what is all but a
heathen ceremony introduced into the churches: while the sun is still shining, heaps of
tapers are lighted, and everywhere a paltry bit of powder, wrapped up in a costly cloth,
is kissed and worshipped. Great honour do men of this sort pay to the blessed martyrs,
who, they think, are to be made glorious by trumpery tapers, when the Lamb who is in the
midst of the throne, with all the brightness of His majesty, gives them light?"

5. Madman, who in the world ever adored the martyrs? who ever thought man was God? Did
not[2] Paul and Barnabas, when the people of Lycaonia thought them to be Jupiter and
Mercury, and would have offered sacrifices to them, rend their clothes and declare they
were men? Not that they were not better than Jupiter and Mercury, who were but men long
ago dead, but because, under the mistaken ideas of the Gentiles, the honour due to God was
being paid to them. And we read the same respecting Peter, who, when Cornelius wished to
adore him, raised him by the hand, and said, [3]"Stand up, for I also am a man."
And have you the audacity to speak of "the mysterious something or other which you
carry about in a little vessel and worship?" I want to know what it is that you call
"something or other." Tell us more clearly (that there may be no restraint on
your blasphemy) what you mean by the phrase" a bit of powder wrapped up in a costly
cloth in a tiny vessel." It is nothing less than the relics of the martyrs which he
is vexed to see covered with a costly veil, and not bound up with rags or hair-cloth, or
thrown on the midden, so that Vigilantius alone in his drunken slumber may be worshipped.
Are we, therefore guilty of sacrilege when we enter the basilicas of the Apostles? Was the
Emperor Constantius I. guilty of sacrilege when he transferred the sacred relics of
Andrew, Luke, and Timothy to Constantinople? In their presence the demons cry out, and the
devils who dwell in Vigilantius confess that they feel the influence of the saints. And at
the present day is the Emperor Arcadius guilty of sacrilege, who after so long a thee has
conveyed the bones of the blessed Samuel from Judea to Thrace? Are all the bishops to be
considered not only sacrilegious, but silly into the bargain, because they carried that
most worthless thing, dust and ashes, wrapped in silk in golden vessel? Are the people of
all the Churches fools, because they went to meet the sacred relics, and welcomed them
with as much joy as if they beheld a living prophet in the midst of them, so that there
was one great swarm of people from Palestine to Chalcedon with one voice re-echoing the
praises of Christ? They were forsooth, adoring Samuel and not Christ, whose Levite and
prophet Samuel was. You Show mistrust because you think only of the dead body, and
therefore blaspheme. Read he Gospel--[1]"The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the
God of Jacob: He is not the God of the dead, but of the living." If then they are
alive, they are not, to use your expression, kept in honourable confinement.

6. For you say that the souls of Apostles and martyrs have their abode either in the
bosom of Abraham, or in the place of refreshment, or under the altar of God, and that they
cannot leave their own tombs, and be present there they will. They are, it seems, of
senatorial rank. and are not subjected to the worst kind of prison and the society of
murderers, but are kept apart in liberal and honourable custody in the isles of the
blessed and the Elysian fields. Will you lay down the law for God? Will you put the
Apostles into chains? So that to the day of judgment they re to be kept in confinement,
and are not with their Lord, although it is written concerning them, [3]"They follow
the Lamb, whithersoever he goeth." If the Lamb is present everywhere, the same must
be believed respecting those who are with the Lamb. And while the devil and the demons
wander through the whole world, and with only too great speed present themselves
everywhere; are martyrs, after the shedding of their blood, to be kept out of sight shut
up in a[1] coffin, from whence they cannot escape? You say, in your pamphlet, that so long
as we are alive we can pray for one another; but once we die, the prayer of no person for
another can be heard, and all the more because the martyrs, though they[2] cry for the
avenging of their blood, have never been able to obtain their request. If Apostles and
martyrs while still in the body can pray for others, when they ought still to be anxious
for themselves, how much more must they do so when once they have won their crowns,
overcome, and triumphed? A single man, Moses, oft[3] wins pardon from God for six hundred
thousand armed men; and[4] Stephen, the follower of his Lord and the first Christian
martyr, entreats pardon for his persecutors; and when once they have entered on their life
with Christ, shall they have less power than before? The Apostle Paul[6] says that two
hundred and seventy-six souls were given to him in the ship; and when, after his
dissolution, he has begun to be with Christ, must he shut his mouth, and be unable to say
a word for those who throughout the whole world have believed in his Gospel? Shall
Vigilantius the live dog be better than Paul the dead lion? I should be right in saying so
after[6] Ecclesiastes, if I admitted that Paul is dead in spirit. The truth is that the
saints are not called dead, but are said to be asleep. Wherefore[7] Lazarus, who was about
to rise again, is said to have slept. And the Apostle[8] forbids the Thessalonians to be
sorry for those who were asleep. As for you, when wide awake you are asleep, and asleep
when you write, and you bring before me an apocryphal book which, under the name of
Esdras, is read by you and those of your feather, and in this book it is[9] written that
after death no one dares pray for others. I have never read the book: for what need is
there to take up what the Church does not receive? It can hardly be your intention to
confront me with Balsamus, and Barbelus, and the Thesaurus of Manichaeus, and the
ludicrous name of Leusiboras; though possibly because you live at the foot of the
Pyrenees, and border on Iberia, you follow the incredible marvels of the ancient
heretic[1] Basilides and his so-called knowledge, which is there ignorance, and set forth
what is condemned by the authority of the whole world. I say this because in your short
treatise you quote Solomon as if he were on your side, though Solomon never wrote the
words in question at all; so that, as you have a second Esdras you may have a second
Solomon. And, if you like, you may read the imaginary revelations of all the patriarchs
and prophets, and, when you have learned them, you may sing them among the women in their
weaving-shops, or rattler order them to be read in your taverns, the more easily by these
melancholy ditties to stimulate the ignorant mob to replenish their cups.

7. As to the question of tapers, however, we do not, as you in vain misrepresent us,
light them in the daytime, but by their solace we would cheer the darkness of the night,
and watch for the dawn, lest we should be blind like you and sleep in darkness. And if
some persons, being ignorant and simple minded laymen, or, at all events, religious
women--of whom we can truly sa, [2]"I allow that they hive a zeal for God, but not
according to knowledge"--adopt the practice in honour of the martyrs, what harm is
thereby done to you? Once upon a thee even the Apostles[3] pleaded that the ointment was
wasted, but they were rebuked by the voice of the Lord. Christ did not need the ointment,
nor do martyrs need the light of tapers; and yet that woman poured out the ointment in
honour of Christ, and her heart's devotion was accepted. All those who light these tapers
have their reward according to their faith, as the Apostle says: [4]"Let every one
abound in his own meaning." Do you call men. of this sort idolaters? I do not deny,
that all of us who believe in Christ have passed from the error of idolatry. For we are
not: born Christians, but become Christians by being born again. And because we formerly
worshipped idols, does it follow that we ought not now to worship God lest we seem to pay
like honour to Him and to idols? In the one case respect was paid to idols, and therefore
the ceremony is to be abhorred; in the other the martyrs are venerated, and the same
ceremony is therefore to be allowed. Throughout the whole Eastern Church, even when there
are no relics of the martyrs, whenever the Gospel is to be read the candles are lighted,
although the dawn may be reddening the sky, not of course to scatter the darkness, but by
way of evidencing our joy. [1]And accordingly the virgins in the Gospel always have their
lamps lighted. And the Apostles are[2] told to have their loins girded, and their lamps
burning in their hands. And of John Baptist we read, [3]"He was the lamp that burneth
and shineth"; so that, under the figure of corporeal light, that light is represented
of which we read in the Psalter, [4]"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, O Lord, and a
light unto my paths."

8. Does the bishop of Rome do wrong when he offers sacrifices to the Lord over the
venerable bones of the dead men Peter and Paul, as we should say, but according to you,
over a worthless bit of dust, and judges their tombs worthy to be Christ's altars? And not
only is the bishop of one city in error, but the bishops of the whole world, who, despite
the tavern-keeper Vigilantius, enter the basilicas of the dead, in which" a worthless
bit of dust and ashes lies wrapped up in a cloth," defiled and defiling all else.
Thus, according to you, the sacred buildings are like the sepulchres of the Pharisees,
whitened without, while within they have filthy remains, and are full of foul smells and
uncleanliness. And then he dares to expectorate his filth upon the subject and to say:
"Is it the case that the souls of the martyrs love their ashes, and hover round them,
and are always present, lest haply if any one come to pray and they were absent, they
could not hear? " Oh, monster, who ought to be banished to the ends of the earth! do
you laugh at the relics of the martyrs, and in company with Eunomius, the father of this
heresy, slander the Churches of Christ? Are you not afraid of being in such company, and
of speaking against us the same things which he utters against the Church? For all his
followers refuse to enter the basilicas of Apostles and martyrs, so that, forsooth, they
may worship the dead Eunomius, whose books they consider are of more authority than the
Gospels; and they believe that the light of truth was in him. just as other heretics
maintain that the Paraclete came into Montanus, and say that Manichaeus himself was the
Paraclete. You cannot find an occasion of boasting even in supposing that you are the
inventor of a new kind of wickedness, for your heresy long ago broke out against the
Church. It found, however, an opponent in Tertullian, a very learned man, who wrote a
famous treatise which he called most correctly Scorpiacum,[5] because, as the scorpion
bends itself like a bow to inflict its wound. so what was formerly called the heresy of
Cain pours poison into the body of the Church; it has slept or rather been buried for a
long thee, but has been now awakened by Dormitantius. I am surprised you do not tell us
that there must upon no account be martyrdoms, inasmuch as God, who does not ask for the
blood of goats and bulls, much less requires the blood of men. This is what you say, or
rather, even if you do not say it, you are taken as meaning to assert it. For in
maintaining that the relics of the martyrs are to be trodden under foot, you forbid the
shedding of their blood as being worthy of no honour.

9. Respecting vigils and the frequent keeping of night-watches in the basilicas of the
martyrs, I have given a brief reply in another letter[1] which, about two years ago, I
wrote to the reverend presbyter Riparias. You argue that they ought to be abjured, lest we
seem to be often keeping Easter, and appear not to observe the customary yearly vigils. If
so, then sacrifices should not be offered to Christ on the Lord's day lest we frequently
keep the Easter of our Lord's Resurrection, and introduce the custom of having many
Easters instead of one. We must not. however, impute to pious men the faults and errors of
youths and worthless women such as are often detected at night. It is true that, even at
the Easter vigils, something of the kind usually comes to light; but the faults of a few
form no argument against religion in general, and such persons, without keeping vigil, can
go wrong either in their own houses or in those of other people. The treachery of Judas
did not annul the loyalty of the Apostles. And if others keep vigil badly, our vigils are
not thereby to be stopped; nay, rather let those who sleep to gratify their lust be
compelled to watch that they may preserve their chastity. For if a thing once done be
good, it cannot be bad if often done; and if there is some fault to be avoided, the blame
lies not in its being done often, but in its being done at all. And so we should not watch
at Easter-tide for fear that adulterers may satisfy their long pent-up desires, or that
the wife may find an opportunity for sinning without having the Key turned against her by
her husband. The occasions which seldom recur are those which are most eagerly longed for.

10. I cannot traverse all the topics embraced in the letters of the reverend
presbyters; I will adduce a few points from the tracts of Vigilantius. He argues against
the signs and miracles which are wrought in the basilicas of the martyrs, and says that
they are of service to the unbelieving, not to believers, as I though the question now
were for whose advantage they occur, not by what power. Granted that signs belong to the
faithless, who, because they would not obey the word and doctrine, are brought to believe
by means of signs. Even our Lord wrought signs for the unbelieving, and yet our Lord's
signs are not on that account to be impugned, because those people were faithless, but
must be worthy of greater admiration because they were so powerful that they subdued even
the hardest hearts, and compelled men to believe. And so I will not have you tell me that
signs are for the unbelieving; but answer my question--how is it that poor worthless dust
and ashes are associated with this wondrous power of signs and miracles? I see, I see,
most unfortunate of mortals, why you are so sad and what causes your fear. That unclean
spirit who forces you to write these things has often been tortured by this worthless
dust, aye, and is being tortured at this moment, and though in your case he conceals his
wounds, in others he makes confession. You will hardly follow the heathen and impious
Porphyry and Eunomius, and pretend that these are the tricks of the demons, and that they
do not really cry out, but feign their torments. Let me give you my advice: go to the
basilicas of the martyrs, and some day you will be cleansed; you will find there many in
like case with yourself, and will be set on fire, not by the martyrs' tapers which offend
you, but by invisible flames; and you will then confess what you now deny, and will freely
proclaim your name--that you who speak in the person of Vigilantius are really either
Mercury, for greedy of gain was he; or Nocturnus, who, according to Plautus's
"Amphitryon," slept while jupiter, two nights together, had his adulterous
connection with Alcmena, and thus begat the mighty Hercules; or at all events Father
Bacchus, of drunken fame, with the tankard hanging from his shoulder, with his ever ruby
face, foaming lips, and unbridled brawling.

11. Once, when a sudden earthquake in this province in the middle of the night awoke us
all out of our sleep, you, the most prudent and the wisest of men, began to pray without
putting your clothes on, and recalled to our minds the story of Adam and Eve in Paradise;
they, indeed, when their eyes were opened were ashamed, for they saw that they were naked,
and covered their shame with the leaves of trees; but you, who were stripped Mike of your
shirt and of your faith, in the sudden terror which overwhelmed you, and with the fumes of
your last night's booze still hanging about you, showed your wisdom by exposing your
nakedness in only too evident a manner to the eyes of the brethren. Such are the
adversaries of the Church; these are the leaders who fight against the blood of the
martyrs; here is a specimen of the orators who thunder against the Apostles, or, rather,
such are the mad dogs which bark at the disciples of Christ.

12. I confess my own fear, for possibly it may be thought to spring from superstition.
When I have been angry, or have had evil thoughts in my mind, or some phantom of the night
has beguiled me, I do not dare to enter the basilicas of the martyrs, I shudder all over
in body and soul. You may smile, perhaps, and deride this as on a level with the wild
fancies of weak women. If it be so, I am not ashamed of having a faith like that of those
who were the first to see the risen Lord; who were sent to the Apostles; who, in the
person of the mother of our Lord and Saviour, were commended to the holy Apostles. Belch
out your shame, if yon will, with men of the world, I will fast with women; yea, with
religious men whose looks witness to their chastity, and who, with the cheek pale from
prolonged abstinence, show forth the chastity of Christ.

13. Something, also, appears to be troubling you. You are afraid that, if continence,
sobriety, and fasting strike root among the people of Gaul, your taverns will not pay, and
you will be unable to keep up through the night your diabolical vigils and drunken revels.
Moreover, I have learnt from those same letters that, in defiance of the authority of
Paul, nay, rather of Peter, John, and James, who gave the right hand of fellowship to Paul
and Barnabas, and commanded them to remember the poor, you forbid any pecuniary relief to
be sent to Jerusalem for the benefit of the saints. Now, if I reply to this, you will
immediately give tongue and cry out that I am pleading my own cause. You, forsooth, were
so generous to the whole community that if you had not come to Jerusalem, and lavished
your own money or that of your patrons, we should all be on the verge of starvation. I say
what the blessed Apostle Paul says in nearly all his Epistles; and he makes it a rule for
the Churches of the Gentiles that, on the first day of the week, that is, on the Lord's
day, contributions should be made by every one which should be sent up to Jerusalem for
the relief of the saints, and that either by his own disciples, or by those whom they
should themselves approve; and if it were thought fit, he would himself either send, or
take what was collected. Also in the Acts of the Apostles, when speaking to the governor
Felix, he says,[1] "After many years I went up to Jerusalem to bring alms to my
nation and offerings, and to perform my vows, amidst which they found me purified in the
temple." Might he not have distributed in some other part of the world, and in the
infant Churches which he was training in his own faith, the gifts he had received from
others? But he longed to give to the poor of the holy places who, abandoning their own
little possessions for the sake of Christ, turned with their whole heart to the service of
the Lord. It would take too long now if I purposed to repeat all the passages from the
whole range of his Epistles in which he advocates and urges with all his heart that money
be sent to Jerusalem and to the holy places for the faithful; not to gratify avarice, but
to give relief; not to accumulate wealth, but to support the weakness of the poor body,
and to stave off cold and hunger. And this custom continues in Judea to the present day,
not only among us, but also among the Hebrews, so that they who[1] meditate in the law of
the Lord, day and night, and have[2] no father upon earth except the Lord alone, may be
cherished by the aid of the synagogues and of the whole world; that there may be[3]
equality--not that some may be refreshed while others are in distress, but that the
abundance of some may support the need of others.

14. You will reply that every one can do this in his own country, and that there will
never be wanting poor who ought to be supported with the resources of the Church. And we
do not deny that doles should be distributed to all poor people, even to Jews and
Samaritans, if the means will allow. But the Apostle teaches that alms should be given to
all, indeed,[4] especially, however, to those who are of the household of faith. And
respecting these the Saviour said in the Gospel,[5] "Make to yourselves friends of
the mammon of unrighteousness, who may receive you into everlasting habitations."
What! Can those poor creatures, with their rags and filth, lorded over, as they are, by
raging lust, can they who own nothing, now or hereafter, have eternal habitations? No
doubt it is not the poor simply, but the poor in spirit, who are called blessed; those of
whom it is written,[6] "Blessed is he who gives his mind to the poor and needy; the
Lord shall deliver him in the evil day." But the fact is, in supporting the poor of
the common people, what is needed is not mind, but money. In the case of the saintly poor
the mind has blessed exercises, since you give to one who receives with a blush, and when
he has received is grieved, that while sowing spiritual things he must reap your carnal
things. As for his argument that they who keep what they have, and distribute among the
poor, little by little, the increase of their property, act more wisely than they who sell
their possessions, and once for all give all away, not I but the Lord shall make
answer:[1] "If thou wilt be perfect, go sell all that thou hast and give to the poor,
and come, follow Me." He speaks to him' who wishes to be perfect, who, with the
Apostles, leaves father, ship, and net. The man whom you approve stands in the second or
third rank; yet we welcome him provided it be understood that the first is to be preferred
to the second, and the second to the third.

15. Let me add that our monks are not to be deterred from their resolution by you with
your viper's tongue and savage bite. Your argument respecting them runs thus: If all men
were to seclude themselves and live in solitude, who is there to frequent the churches?
Who will remain to win those engaged in secular pursuits? Who will be able to urge sinners
to virtuous conduct? Similarly, if all were as silly as you, who could be wise? And, to
follow out your argument, virginity would not deserve our approbation. For if all were
virgins, we should have no marriages; the race would perish; infants would not cry in
their cradles; midwives would lose their pay and turn beggars; and Dormitantius, all alone
and shrivelled up with cold, would lie awake in his bed. The truth is, virtue is a rare
thing and not eagerly sought after by the many. Would that all were as the few of whom it
is said: [2]"Many are called, few are chosen." The prison would be empty. But,
indeed, a monk's function is not to teach, but to lament; to mourn either for himself or
for the world, and with terror to anticipate our Lord's advent. Knowing his own weakness
and the frailty of the vessel which he carries, he is afraid of stumbling, lest he strike
against something, and it fall and be broken. Hence he shuns the sight of women, and
particularly of young women, and so far chastens himself as to dread even what is safe.

16. Why, you will say, go to the desert? The reason is plain: That I may not hear or
see you; that I may not be disturbed by your madness; that I may not be engaged in
conflict with you; that the eye of the harlot nay not lead me captive: that beauty may not
lead me to unlawful embraces. You will reply: "This is not to fight, but to run away.
Stand in line of battle, put on your armour and resist your foes, so that, having
overcome, you may wear the crown." I confess my weakness. I would not fight in the
hope of victory, lest some thee or other I lose the victory. If I flee, I avoid the sword;
if I stand, I must either overcome or fall. But what need is there for me to let go
certainties and follow after uncertainties? Either with my shield or with my feet I must
shun death. You who fight may either be overcome or may overcome. I who fly do not
overcome, inasmuch as I fly; but I fly to make sure that I may not be overcome. There is
no safety in sleep with a serpent beside you. Possibly he will not bite me, yet it is
possible that after a thee he may bite me. We call women mothers who are no older than
sisters and daughters,[1] and we do not blush to cloak our vices with the names of piety.
What business has a monk in the women's cells? What is the meaning of secret conversation
and looks which shun the presence of witnesses? Holy love has no restless desire.
Moreover, what we have said respecting lust we must apply to avarice, and to all vices
which are avoided by solitude. We therefore keep clear of the crowded cities, that we may
not be compelled to do what we are urged to do, not so much by nature as by choice.

17. At the request of the reverend presbyters, as I have said, I have devoted to the
dictation of these remarks the labour of a single night, for my brother Sisinnius is
hastening his departure for Egypt, where he has relief to give to the saints, and is
impatient to be gone. If it were not so, however, the subject itself was so openly
blasphemous as to call for the indignation of a writer rather than a multitude of proofs.
But if Dormitantius wakes up that he may again abuse me, and if he thinks fit to disparage
me with that same blasphemous mouth with which he pulls to pieces Apostles and martyrs, I
will spend upon him something more than this short lucubration. I will keep vigil for a
whole night in his behalf and in behalf of his companions, whether they be disciples or
masters, who think no man to be worthy of Christ's ministry unless he is married and his
wife is seen to be with child.

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